Examining The Definition Of Western Orientalism Cultural Studies Essay

Examining The Definition Of Western Orientalism Cultural Studies Essay Orientalism transfigures the study of Middle East. Edward Said defines, Orientalism as the ethnocentric way Europe approaches the Asian regions.  Europeans looked upon the people of the Orient or the East and Arabic states as gullible and devoid of energy and initiative.   The invasion of European nations proved a radical decline in the natural prosperity of every nation they stumbled upon. The matters of the European sense of superiority and interest in control can also be seen in orientalist scholarship. Backward and barbaric, fundamentally incapable of social, political, or technological modernization, these were the descriptions of the non-western societies given to them by the people of west. Orientalism is the term that signifies the existing dislike and discrimination at the bottom of the political, economic, social and cultural discourses that were created to justify the imperialist Wests invasion and domination over the non-West. In other words, Orientalism was brought o ut as a matter of historical judgment. He illustrates Asian and Islamic Cultures during European imperialism and Europes goals of maintaining power and domination of non-Europeans.He argued that Europe used the Orient and imperialism as a symbol of its strength and superiority. Said suggested that Orientalists are treated as others-in this case, Muslims and Asians-and as objects defined not in terms of their own discourses, but solely in terms of standards and definitions imposed on them from outside. Among the influences underlying these definitions was, in Saids view, a long-standing Western concern with presenting Islam as opposed to Christianity. Said divided orientalism into two categories, one is the latent Orientalism which  is the unconscious, untouchable certainty about what the Orient is. Its basic content is static and unanimous. The Orient is seen as separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive. It has a tendency towards despotism and away from progress. It displays feminine penetrability and supine malleability. Its progress and value are judged in terms of, and in comparison to, the West, so it is always the other, the conquerable, and the inferior whereas manifest Orientalism  is what is spoken and acted upon. It includes information and changes in knowledge about the Orient as well as policy decisions founded in Orientalist thinking. It is the expression in words and actions of Latent Orientalism. Any humanist would see that before the west intervened, each individual culture followed to their habitat, past experiences, and past knowledge.   Even though they were not modernized they still would have survived on their own just as they had been doing it for centuries.  Ã‚   However, a race of people could not be heartless enough to admit their destruction with a clear conscious and no remorse.   They would not pack their bags and leave a deserted crippled country. Orientalism and Western domination of the rest of the world. Understanding Orientalism is useful in the context of South Asia, as it enables us to understand the relationship between political hegemony and knowledge. Said says Orientalism exposes the European will to domination to create an orderly discipline of study a set of institutions, a latent vocabulary a subject matter, and subject races. It represents the power to make philological distinctions and the institutional force to make statements about Oriental mentality, the inscrutable Oriental, the unreliable and degenerate Oriental. The concept of Orientalism is useful in analysing prevailing literature, generalised and essentialised ideas such as Hinduism and Islam. It is also important in understanding womens movements and feminist discourses in South Asia. Many South Asian women used the criticism of Orientalism to criticise literature, imaginations and situations affecting women. Yet, the idea of Orientalism and the Western imagery of the Orient can be used ideologically by extremis t nationalists and fundamentalists who suppress the freedom of thought under the pretence of defending the Orient and fighting with the West. Misunderstanding the project of Orientalism may increase hostility between people and glorify myths such as West and Orient. It is no longer desirable, in our globalised world, to say that only South Asians can talk about South Asia, or only Hindu can talk about Hinduism and explain Indian religious traditions. For example, Tibetan Buddhism was scorned again during the Victorian period, when Buddhist studies were growing into an academic discipline. As depicted by Prof Lopez, The nineteenth-century constructions of Tibetan Buddhism are part of the heritage of Orientalism, described by Edward Said as a European mode for gaining authority over the Orient, a mode whereby Orientals were controlledpolitically and epistemologicallyby scholars in Europe and colonial officials in Asia. An important part of this scholarship was the self-aggrandizing ab ility of European scholars to write histories of Oriental civilizations that identified their origins, their classical periods, and their decline. The last of these (also called the modern period) was marked by decay and impotence. The modern period was also contemporaneous with European colonialism, one of whose products for the West was knowledge about the East. According to the exponents of this new field of knowledge, the facts and artefacts of the classical period were rescued by the emergent Western scholarship from the custody of the Orientals, who failed to recognize them for what they were and hence lost any right to them. The Orientalist would henceforth speak for the Oriental through heredity of scholarship whose task it was to represent the Orient because the Orient was incapable of representing itself. This representation of the East by the West carried with it the valuation of what was true and what was false, what was worthy and what was worthless. Furthermore, accord ing to Edward Saids  Orientalism, the texts produced by European Orientalists had the power to create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to define by delimiting the object of knowledge. Said argues that Orientalism also had more directly political effects: its representations of the Orient provided a justification for imperialism and a foundation for colonial policies and institutions. (Prof Donald S. Lopez Jr, 1994) Iraq is the ultimate illustration of how Orientalist conventional wisdom had it wrong.   Arguing that this Orientalism has driven America to contempt and discriminate against the Orient, and eventually to invade Afghanistan and Iraq as well as arousing certain public opinion against North Korea, may be criticized for its ignorance or exaggeration, especially when the world has observed the events of September attack (9/11) and the North Korean nuclear weapon issue.During the past two centuries Europe has ideologically constituted Asia in relation to itself with the purpose of putting its hand in it. In the past decade, Asian music and culture has spread throughout the West like poppies. The problem is that this Orientalism is still present, long after the imperialist invasions. Bushs policies are the evidence for the existence of Orientalism. The Bush administration invaded Iraq claiming that Iraq had Weapon of Mass destruction (WMD) and that Saddam Hussein was an unforgivable dict ator. As the supposed Weapon of mass destruction (WMD) have not yet been found and as Hussein was the representative of Iraq, chosen by its people, it is natural that the Iraqi people pronounce curse against Bush. With the amount of west intervention in Iraq, it was not possible for the US military force to occupy Iraq forever. During the Bush administration, he announced that the US military force will be withdrawn upon the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq, the US will probably still try to dominate Iraq in one way or another as long as they have an oil interest in Iraq. Their dominance, however, will not last for long, and the US army cannot help but leave Iraq. This is just a matter of time. Americans or people in the world felt over 9/11 attack. Nobody can deny that 9/11 was an atrocity that aroused anger around the world. The world, however, is aware that the broad antagonism of the west especially Americans against the Arab world was one of the main causes of 9 /11, and that the terrorist Bin Laden himself was, in the past nurtured by the US to fight against the USSR. In other words, 9/11 was a trap set by the US themselves then. The war in Iraq, perceptions have proven particularly relevant to the conduct of military operations. However, because Western outlook of this critical region, and forming the personal collection of most Westerners, are predetermined by each individuals experience within his/her culture. This experience is mostly shaped by the images, ideas and impressions retained from exposure to popular culture, media and more or less elaborate programmes or readings, and depending on ones educational accomplishments, personal or professional interests. The common characteristic between all these individual experiences, as far as the Middle-East is concerned, is that they are all immersed in a predominant consensus or discourse about the representation of this critical region of the world. Likewise, the launch of the Arabic lan guage Al-Jazeera satellite channel nearly ten years ago, transformed the television landscape in the Middle East. And over the past three years the channel has gained global reputation and became a name which governments and decision-makers across the world can hardly ignore. Even, In  The Lord of the Rings  film trilogy, the costumes of the Haradrims, a human race who allies itself with the enemy, are Middle-Eastern in style. When children are fed this kind of negative bias against the Middle-East, the subliminal cultural consciousness of whole generations is enduringly and profoundly impacted. The normality of such bad depictions clearly illustrates what several Western intellectuals qualify at best as acceptable political in correctness directed against Middle-Easterner The war declared on terrorism after the massacre of 9/11 in New York, with the subsequent military operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq, revives this tradition of improving interventionism by carrying on the old orientalist-related topic. Far from destroying the Great Divide between the West and the Rest, the wars of a new type support and separate the division between civilized and barbaric in the era of globalization. The explanation of ideology of the American, according to which there would no longer be outside or inside, because no country would now be released from terrorism. What now prevails is a sober vision of globalization, that of a fight to the death between two worlds, extending over all continents, between America, and the Islamic terrorism. But this originality goes back to schemes that are as old as the United States itself, insofar as this self-proclaimed exceptional, autonomous and providential imperial republic has an idealistic or ideal component qualified as es sential. Edward Said also refers to the medias ability to control and filter information as an invisible screen, releasing what it wants people to know and blacking out what it does not want them to know. To accomplish his goal Said sets up a methodological argument within which he addresses three main concepts. First, that imperialism is not about a specific moment in history, but rather a continuing interdependent dialogue between subject peoples and the dominant hegemony of the empire. Secondly, through the production of popular western literature authors have maintained a sense of continued supremacy upon subject peoples. This theorization that postcolonial domination has been institutionalized within western literature is a reference to the idea of a continuing interchange of ideas between dominant culture and oppressed peoples. Lastly, Saids comparison of colonialism to racism is integral to his argument about the continuation of oppression in a postcolonial environment. Throughout his analysis of culture, he focuses on the limitations of subjugated peoples within western culture and the reasons for their continued oppression. In Covering Islam (1997), Said postulates that, if knowledge is power, those who control the modern Western media (visual and print) are most powerful because they are able to determine what people like or dislike, what they wear and how they wear it, and what they should know and must not know about themselves. Said claims that untruth and falsehood about Islam and the Muslim world are consistently propagated in the media, in the name of objectivity, liberalism, freedom, democracy and progress Conclusion In this contemporary world, there is at least more than fifty percent intervention of the west towards the rest of the world. Edward Said argues in Orientalism, his landmark 1978 study of the relationship between the production of knowledge and the exercise of imperial power, the attitudes and images created by this tradition compose a closely bound system of created knowledge, of willed human work, about the Eastern other which the imperial powers of Europe and North America have historically used to invite and justify political and economic intervention and imperialism. Critics who have studied Orientalism in Europe, especially in nineteenth-century literature, have pointed out that there is much that can be learned about the Wests image of itself through the way Western writers have depicted the Orient. The influential popular magazine, The National Geographic, established in 1988 used to represent a window on the world for millions of middle class Americans at a time when movies and televisions were either not yet invented or in their infancy. The plain picturesque coverage of the Middle-East, by this magazine, showed the Arabs as exotic Orientals Mass media and movie industry developed throughout the twentieth century to become the main spreader of information, images and attitudes about the region to the public at large. The Arab Muslim progressively became a figure in American popular culture. No one can deny that orientalism has made great contributions to the study of Arab culture and history, and to the religion of Islam. Orientalists were and still are standing as experts in Arab-Islamic culture. They accumulated very rich knowledge and experience in this field of inquiry. In fact they made tremendous contribution to research, translation, and ultimately to the preservation and indexing of Arab-Islamic heritage.

Bladerunner - Humanity And Nature Essays -- essays research papers

The central theme of Bladerunner is the relationship between humanity and nature. More specifically it has a purpose in showing how science can negatively influence this fragile relationship. Set in Los Angeles of 2019 we see the decadence of western society into an inhumane harsh impersonal, technology-dominated realm. The inhabitants who fight for their daily survival are in desperate want for nature, contact with which is denied to them by the unrestricted scientific progress and the consequent exploitation of the natural world conducted for the sole purpose of profit. Humanity is also losing touch with it’s own nature. The compassion, the empathy, the love and the emotion are all rare or absent. This ailing relationship between humanity and nature is conveyed through the means of scene setting, dialogue, plot, camera techniques and other film features. All these elements of cinematography synthesise to create an effective portrayal of the unifying theme. In Bladerunner the most prominent element of cinematography is mise en scà ©ne. It generates a context for the film and therefore makes the plot and themes acceptable. To set an appropriate scene different variables need to be controlled. These variables include location, props, lighting and colour. In general the location of the plot is in the vast urban canyons of 2019 LA. The imposing dark buildings, the dirty fog, perpetual rain and the crowded dark streets devoid of vegetation make up the backdrop of most scenes. All this is filmed in dark lighting, which complements the effect produced by the fog in obscuring the living details. From this the responder acknowledges the deterioration of society, the harsh conditions that the humans are subjected to and the way the human spirit itself is progressively destroyed under such conditions. Filming such a location at night provides the director with the opportunity to use chiaroscuro (a technique of strong contrast) to further convey the dominance of technology over humanity. For example in outdoor scenes the garish flickering neons are obtrusively visible but they fail to illuminate the obscure, dark, fogged surroundings, including the multitudes of faceless people. The prominent visibility of artificial things over human presence together with the qualities of the location indicates the degradation of human life under the rule of science. The clothing w... ...he development of characters and their response to the events of the plot, Ridley Scott and the actors communicate the way relationship between humanity and nature has evolved (deteriorated) into the world of 2019 LA. In effect all the techniques mentioned above portray a society of individuals who are weary of the world they live in. They are rejects who lead a pitiful existence in a wasteland called earth because they are not fit enough to go the out-world colonies. Suppressing their own natural instincts for the sake of physically surviving they really the walking dead. Scientific progress conducted not for the best interests of humanity but for the best interests of business has effectively brought about the progressive degradation of society. By exploiting and destroying the natural world human can no more find solace or beauty so as to recuperate their weary minds and rekindle their dying spirits. In summary the techniques that are unique to film such as camera, lighting, costuming, colour and location works in conjunction with common literary techniques such as visual symbolism, irony and characterisation to effectively convey the relationship between humanity and nature.

The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 9

Bonnie winced at the nasty metalic taste in her mouth and blinked several times, until the room around her came back into focus. â€Å"Ugh,† she said. â€Å"I hate doing that.† Everyone was staring at her, their faces white and shocked. â€Å"What?† she said uneasily. â€Å"What'd I say?† Elena was sitting very stil . â€Å"You said it was my fault,† she said slowly. â€Å"Whatever is coming after us, I brought it here.† Stefan reached out to cover her hand with his own. Unbidden, the meanest, narrowest part of Bonnie's mind thought wearily, Of course. It's always about Elena, isn't it? Meredith and Matt fil ed Bonnie in on the rest of what she'd said in her trance, but their eyes kept returning to Elena's stricken face, and as soon as they finished tel ing her what she'd missed, they turned away from Bonnie, back to Elena. â€Å"We need to make a plan,† Meredith said to her softly. â€Å"We'l al want some refreshment,† Mrs. Flowers said, rising to her feet, and Bonnie fol owed her into the kitchen, eager to escape the tension of the room. She wasn't real y a plan girl, anyway, she told herself. She'd made her contribution just by being the vision girl. Elena and Meredith were the ones everyone looked to for making the decisions. But it wasn't fair, was it? She wasn't a fool, despite the fact that her friends al treated her like the baby of the group. Everyone thought Elena and Meredith were so clever and so strong, but Bonnie had saved the day again and again – not that anyone ever remembered that. She ran her tongue along the edges of her teeth, trying to scrape off the nasty sour taste stil in her mouth. Mrs. Flowers had decided that what the group needed to soothe them was some of her special elder-flower lemonade. While she fil ed the glasses with ice, poured the drinks, and set them out on a tray, Bonnie watched her restlessly. There was a rough, empty feeling inside Bonnie, like something was missing. It wasn't fair, she thought again. None of them appreciated her or realized al she'd done for them. â€Å"Mrs. Flowers,† she said suddenly. â€Å"How do you talk to your mother?† Mrs. Flowers turned to her, surprised. â€Å"Why, my dear,† she said, â€Å"it's very easy to speak to ghosts, if they want to speak to you, or if they are the spirits of someone you loved. Ghosts, you see, have not left our plane but stay close to us.† â€Å"But stil ,† Bonnie pressed on, â€Å"you can do more than that, a lot more.† She pictured Mrs. Flowers, young again, eyes flashing, hair flying, fighting the kitsune's malevolent Power with an equal Power of her own. â€Å"You're a very powerful witch.† Mrs. Flowers's expression was reserved. â€Å"It's kind of you to say so, dear.† Bonnie twirled a ringlet of her hair around one finger anxiously, weighing her next words. â€Å"Wel†¦ if you would, of course – only if you have time – I'd like you to train me. Whatever you'd be wil ing to teach me. I can see things and I've gotten better at that, but I'd like to learn everything, anything else you can show me. Divining, and about herbs. Protection spel s. The works, I guess. I feel like there's so much I don't know, and I think I might have talent, you know? I hope so, anyway.† Mrs. Flowers looked at her appraisingly for one long moment and then nodded once more. â€Å"I wil teach you,† she said. â€Å"With pleasure. You possess great natural talent.† â€Å"Real y?† Bonnie said shyly. A warm bubble of happiness rose inside her, fil ing the emptiness that had engulfed her just moments ago. Then she cleared her throat and added, as casual y as she could manage, â€Å"And I was wondering†¦ can you talk to anyone who's dead? Or just your mother?† Mrs. Flowers didn't answer for a few moments. Bonnie felt like the older woman's sharp blue gaze was looking straight through her and analyzing the mind and heart inside. When Mrs. Flowers did speak, her voice was gentle. â€Å"Who is it you want to contact, dear?† Bonnie flinched. â€Å"No one in particular,† she said quickly, erasing an image of Damon's black-on-black eyes from her mind. â€Å"It just seems like something that would be useful. And interesting, too. Like, I could learn al about Fel ‘s Church's history.† She turned away from Mrs. Flowers and busied herself with the lemonade glasses, leaving the subject behind for now. There would be time to ask again, she thought. Soon. â€Å"The most important thing,† Elena was saying earnestly, â€Å"is to protect Meredith. We've gotten a warning, and we need to take advantage of it, not sit around worrying about where it came from. If something terrible – something I brought somehow – is coming, we'l deal with it when it gets here. Right now, we look out for Meredith.† She was so beautiful, she made Stefan dizzy. Quite literal y: Sometimes he would look at her, catch her at a certain angle, and would see, as if for the first time, the delicate curve of her cheek, the lightest rose-petal blush in her creamy skin, the soft seriousness of her mouth. In those moments, every time, his head and stomach would swoop as if he'd just gotten off a rol er coaster. Elena. He belonged to her; it was as simple as that. As if for hundreds of years he had been journeying toward this one mortal girl, and now that he had found her, his long, long life final y had found its purpose. You don't have her, though, something inside him said. Not all of her. Not really. Stefan shook off the traitorous thought. Elena loved him. She loved him bravely and desperately and passionately and far more than he deserved. And he loved her. That was what mattered. And right now, this sweet mortal girl he loved was efficiently organizing a schedule for guarding Meredith, assigning duties with the calm expectation that she would be obeyed. â€Å"Matt,† she said, â€Å"if you're working tomorrow night, you and Alaric can take the daytime shift. Stefan wil take over at night, and Bonnie and I wil pick up in the morning.† â€Å"You should have been a general,† Stefan murmured to her, earning himself a quick smile. â€Å"I don't need guards,† Meredith said irritably. â€Å"I've been trained in martial arts and I've faced the supernatural before.† It seemed to Stefan that her eye rested speculatively on him for a second, and he forced himself not to bristle under her scrutiny. â€Å"My stave is al the protection I need.† â€Å"A stave like yours couldn't have protected Celia,† Elena argued. â€Å"Without Stefan there to intervene, she would have been kil ed.† On the couch, Celia closed her eyes and rested her head against Alaric's arm. â€Å"Fine, then.† Meredith spoke in a clipped tone, her eyes on Celia. â€Å"It's true, out of al of us, only Stefan could have saved her. And that's the other reason this whole team effort to protect me is ridiculous. Do you have the strength and speed these days to save me from a moving train, Elena? Does Bonnie?† Stefan saw Bonnie, coming in with a tray of lemonade glasses, pause and frown as she heard Meredith's words. He had known, of course, that with Damon dead and Elena's Powers gone, he was the only one left to protect the group. Wel , Mrs. Flowers and Bonnie had some limited magical ability. Then Stefan amended the thought further. Mrs. Flowers was actual y quite powerful, but her powers were stil depleted from fighting the kitsune. It came to the same thing, then: Stefan was the only one who could protect them now. Meredith might talk about her responsibilities as a vampire hunter, but in the end, despite her training and heritage, she was just another mortal. His eyes scanned the group, al the mortals, his mortals. Meredith, serious gray eyes and a steely resolve. Matt, eager and boyish and decent down to the bone. Bonnie, sunny and sweet, and with a core of strength perhaps even she didn't know she had. Mrs. Flowers, a wise matriarch. Alaric and Celia†¦ wel , they weren't his mortals the way the others were, but they fel under his protection while they were here. He had sworn to prote ct humans, when he could. If he could. He remembered Damon saying to him once, laughing in one of his fits of dangerous good humor, his face gleeful, â€Å"They're just so fragile, Stefan! You can break them without even meaning to!† And Elena, his Elena. She was as vulnerable as the rest of them now. He flinched. If anything ever happened to her, Stefan knew beyond a doubt that he would take off the ring that let him walk in the day, lie down in the grass above her grave, and wait for the sun. But the same hol ow voice inside that questioned Elena's love for him whispered darkly in his ear: She would not do the same for you. You are not her everything. As Elena and Meredith, with occasional interjections from Matt and Bonnie, continued to argue about whether Meredith needed the efforts of the group to guard her, Stefan closed his eyes and slipped into his memories of Damon's death. Stefan watched, foolish and uncomprehending and just not fast enough, as Damon, quicker than him till the last, dashed toward the huge tree and flung Bonnie, light as dandelion fluff, out of the reach of the barbed branches already plummeting toward her. As he threw her, a branch caught Damon through his chest, pinning him to the ground. Stefan saw the moment of shock in his brother's eyes before they rolled backward. A single drop of blood ran from his mouth down his chin. â€Å"Damon, open your eyes!† Elena was screaming. There was a rough tone in her voice, an agony Stefan had never heard from her before. Her hands jerked at Damon's shoulders, as if she wanted to shake him hard, and Stefan pulled her away. â€Å"He can't, Elena, he can't,† he said, half sobbing. Couldn't she see that Damon was dying? The branch had stopped his heart and the tree's poison was spreading through his veins and arteries. He was gone. Stefan had gently lowered Damon's head to the ground. He would let his brother go. But Elena wouldn't. Turning to take her in his arms and comfort her, Stefan saw that she had forgotten him. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving soundlessly. All her muscles were taut, straining toward Damon, and Stefan realized with a dull shock that she and Damon were connected still, that a last conversation was being carried on along some private frequency that excluded him. Her face was wet with tears, and she suddenly fumbled for her knife and with one swift, sure movement, nicked her own jugular vein, starting blood flowing across her neck. â€Å"Drink, Damon,† she said in a desperate, prayerlike voice, prying his mouth open with her hands and angling her neck above it. The smell of Elena's blood was rich and tangy, making Stefan's canines itch with desire even in his horror at her carelessness in cutting her own throat. Damon did not drink. The blood ran out of his mouth and down his neck, soaking his shirt and pooling on his black leather jacket. Elena sobbed and threw herself on top of Damon, kissing his cold lips, her eyes clenched shut. Stefan could tell she was still in communion with Damon's spirit, a telepathic exchange of love and secrets private between them, the two people he loved most. The only people he loved. A cold tendril of envy, the feeling of being the outsider looking in, the one who was left all alone, curled along Stefan's spine even as tears of grief ran down his face. A phone rang, and Stefan snapped back to the present. Elena glanced at her cel and then answered, â€Å"Hi, Aunt Judith.† She paused. â€Å"At the boardinghouse with everybody. We picked up Alaric and his friend from the train.† Another pause and she grimaced. â€Å"I'm sorry, I forgot. Yes, I wil . In just a few minutes, al right? Okay. Bye.† She hung up and got to her feet. â€Å"Apparently at some point I promised Aunt Judith I would be home for dinner tonight. Robert's getting out the fondue set and Margaret wants me to show her how to dip bread in cheese.† She rol ed her eyes, but Stefan wasn't fooled. He could see how delighted Elena was to have her baby sister idolizing her again. Elena went on, frowning, â€Å"I'm not sure I'l be able to get out again tonight, but someone needs to be with Meredith at al times. Can you stay here tonight, Meredith, instead of at home?† Meredith nodded slowly, her long legs drawn up under her on the couch. She looked tired and apprehensive, despite her earlier bravado. Elena touched her hand in farewel , and Meredith smiled at her. â€Å"I'm sure your minions wil take good care of me, Queen Elena,† she said lightly. â€Å"I'd expect nothing less,† Elena answered in the same tone, turning her smile on the rest of the room. Stefan got to his feet. â€Å"I'l walk you home,† he said. Matt rose, too. â€Å"I can drive you,† he offered, and Stefan was surprised to find that he had to suppress the urge to shove Matt back into his seat. Stefan would take care of Elena. She was his responsibility. â€Å"No, stay here, both of you,† Elena said firmly. â€Å"It's only a few blocks, and it's stil broad daylight out. You look after Meredith.† Stefan settled back in his chair, eyeing Matt. With a wave, Elena was gone, and Stefan stretched out his senses to fol ow her as far as he could, pushing his Power to sense whether anything dangerous, anything at al , lurked nearby. His Powers weren't strong enough, though, to reach al the way to Elena's house. He curled his hands into tight, frustrated fists. He had been so much more powerful when he al owed himself to drink human blood. Meredith was watching him, gray eyes sympathetic. â€Å"She'l be okay,† she said. â€Å"You can't watch her al the time.† But I can try, thought Stefan. When Elena strol ed up her walk, Caleb was clipping the glossy green leaves of the flowering camel ia bushes in front of the house. â€Å"Hi,† she said, surprised. â€Å"Have you been here al day?† He stopped trimming and wiped the sweat off his forehead. With his blond hair and healthy tan, he looked like a California surfer transplanted to a Virginia lawn. Elena thought Caleb seemed just right on a perfect summer day like this one, a lawn mower humming in the distance somewhere, the sky blue and high above them. â€Å"Sure,† he said cheerful y. â€Å"Lots to do. It looks good, right?† â€Å"It real y does,† she said. And it did. The grass was mowed, the hedges were perfectly trimmed, and he had set out some daisies in the flower beds near the house. â€Å"What've you been up to today?† Caleb asked. â€Å"Nothing as energetic as this,† Elena said, suppressing the memory of the desperate race to save Celia. â€Å"My friends and I just picked someone up at the train station and hung out inside for the rest of the day. I hope the weather holds, though. We want to take a picnic up to Hot Springs tomorrow.† â€Å"Sounds like fun,† Caleb said agreeably. Elena was tempted for a moment to invite him along. Despite Stefan's reservations, he seemed like a nice guy, and he probably didn't know many people in town. Maybe Bonnie would hit it off with him. He was pretty cute, after al . And Bonnie hadn't real y been interested in anyone for a while. Anyone other than Damon, a secret little voice said in the back of her mind. But of course she couldn't invite Caleb. What was she thinking? She and her friends couldn't have outsiders around while they talked about what supernatural entity had it in for them now. A little pang of longing hit her. Would she ever be a girl who could have a picnic and swim and flirt and be able to talk to anyone she liked, because she had no dark secrets to conceal? â€Å"Aren't you exhausted?† she asked, quickly changing the subject. She thought she saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. Had he realized she was thinking of inviting him along on the picnic and then changed her mind? But he answered readily enough. â€Å"Oh, your aunt ran me out a couple of glasses of lemonade, and I had a sandwich with your sister at lunchtime.† He grinned. â€Å"She's a cutie. And an excel ent conversationalist. She told me al about tigers.† â€Å"She talked to you?† Elena said with surprise. â€Å"She's usual y real y shy around new people. She wouldn't talk to my boyfriend, Stefan, until he'd been around for months.† â€Å"Oh, wel ,† he said, and shrugged. â€Å"Once I showed her a couple of magic tricks, she was so fascinated she forgot to be shy. She's going to be a master magician by the time she starts first grade. She's a natural.† â€Å"Real y?† said Elena. She felt a sharp shift in her stomach, a sense of loss. She had missed so much of her little sister's life. She'd noticed at breakfast that she looked and sounded older. It was like Margaret had grown into a different person without her. Elena gave herself a mental shake: She needed to stop being such a whiner. She was unbelievably lucky just to be here now. â€Å"Oh, yeah,† he said. â€Å"Look, I taught her this.† He held out a tanned fist, turned it over, and opened his hand to reveal a camel ia blossom, waxy and white, closed his hand, then opened it again to reveal a tightly furled bud. â€Å"Wow,† said Elena, intrigued. â€Å"Do it again.† She watched intently as he opened and closed his hand several times, revealing flower then bud, flower then bud. â€Å"I showed Margaret how to do it with coins, switching between a quarter and a penny,† he said, â€Å"but it's the same principle.† â€Å"I've seen tricks like that before,† she said, â€Å"but I can't figure out where you're hiding the one that isn't showing. How do you do it?† â€Å"Magic, of course,† he said, smiling, and opened his hand to let the camel ia blossom fal at Elena's feet. â€Å"Do you believe in magic?† she said, looking up into his warm blue eyes. He was flirting with her, she knew – guys always flirted with Elena if she let them. â€Å"Wel , I ought to,† he said softly. â€Å"I'm from New Orleans, you know, the home of voodoo.† â€Å"Voodoo?† she said, a cold shiver going down her spine. Caleb laughed. â€Å"I'm just playing with you,† he said. â€Å"Voodoo. Jeez, what a load of crap.† â€Å"Oh, right. Total y,† Elena said, forcing a giggle. â€Å"One time, though,† Caleb continued, â€Å"back before my parents died, Tyler was visiting, and the two of us went to the French Quarter to get our fortunes told by this old voudon priestess.† â€Å"Your parents died?† Elena asked, surprised. Caleb lowered his head for a moment, and Elena reached out to touch him, her hand lingering on his. â€Å"Mine did, too,† she said. Caleb was very stil . â€Å"I know,† he said. Their eyes met, and Elena winced in sympathy. There was such pain in Caleb's warm blue eyes when she looked for it, despite his easy smile. â€Å"It was years ago,† he said softly. â€Å"I stil miss them sometimes, though, you know.† She squeezed his hand. â€Å"I know,† she said quietly. Then Caleb smiled and shook his head a little, and the moment between them was over. â€Å"This was before that, though,† he said. â€Å"We were maybe twelve years old when Tyler visited.† Caleb's slight Southern accent got stronger as he went on, his tone lazy and rich. â€Å"I didn't believe in that stuff back then, either, and I don't think Tyler did, but we thought it might be kind of fun. You know how it's fun to scare yourself a little sometimes.† He paused. â€Å"It was pretty creepy, actual y. She had al these black candles burning and weird charms everywhere, stuff made of bones and hair. She threw some powder on the floor around us and looked at the different patterns. She told Tyler she saw a big change coming for him and that he needed to think careful y before he put himself in someone else's power.† Elena flinched involuntarily. A big change had certainly come for Tyler, and he had put himself in the vampire Klaus's power. Wherever Tyler was now, things hadn't turned out the way he'd planned. â€Å"And what did she tel you?† she asked. â€Å"Nothing much, real y,† he answered. â€Å"Mostly just to be good. Stay out of trouble, look out for my family. That kind of thing. Stuff I try to do. My aunt and uncle need me here now, with Tyler missing.† He looked down at her again, shrugged, and smiled. â€Å"Like I said, though, it was mostly just a load of crap. Magic and al that nutty stuff.† â€Å"Yeah,† Elena said hol owly. â€Å"Al that nutty stuff.† The sun went behind a cloud and Elena shivered once more. Caleb moved closer to her. â€Å"Are you cold?† he said, and reached a hand out toward her shoulder. At that moment a raucous caw burst from the trees by the house, and a big black crow flew toward them, low and fast. Caleb dropped his hand and ducked, covering his face, but the crow angled up at the last minute, flapping furiously, and soared away over their heads. â€Å"Did you see that?† Caleb cried. â€Å"It almost hit us.† â€Å"I did,† Elena answered, watching as the graceful winged silhouette disappeared into the sky. â€Å"I did.†

Ethics And Ethics Of Plastic Surgery - 1999 Words

Professionalism and Ethics in Plastic Surgery The subject of ethics has been one for the ages. Since man could think and reflect on his state, the question of right and wrong has been contemplated. Bioethics is a relatively young field, only beginning to develop institutionally and professionally in the late 1960s and 1970s. Nevertheless, this field has grown exponentially over these past decades and will continue to develop in conjunction with the advancement of medicine, science, and biotechnology In an article published in the November 2009 issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Chung et al published â€Å"A systematic review of ethical principles in the plastic surgery literature†, and by doing so reviewed and categorized all the†¦show more content†¦These categories included patient informed consent (32 percent), facial allotransplantation (19 percent), and resource rationing and managed care (7 percent). The research revealed a substantial gap in the amount of ethical inquiry in plastic and reconstructive surgical literature. Unfortunately, the lack of a standardized ethics curriculum in most training programs might be attributed to why there is a lack of a concrete understanding regarding what is considered behavior appropriate to the practice of plastic surgery. This is further reflected in the paucity of data and literature that exists on this topic. It’s only recently that research and published literature has begun to emerge on this key issue at the core of shaping the professional landscape we hope to cultivate as plastic surgeons. Despite the complex ethical dilemmas plastic surgeons face, it is uncertain whether ethical principles are adequately presented in the plastic surgery literature. Studies have shown that there is a disproportionately small amount of ethical content in this sub specialties’ literature. The concept of professionalism is synonymous with ethical behavior and is part of the six core competencies, presented as such in the literature relating to this topic. Maintenance of the highest ethical and moral standards within the practice of plastic surgery and medicine in generalShow MoreRelatedPlastic Surgery Ethics Essay1605 Words   |  7 PagesPlastic surgery is a rapidly evolving field spread around the world. Plastic surgery deals with human appearance and is becoming a more profitable business throughout the years. It is divided into two sections, reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. An ethical dilemma that corresponds to plastic surgery is the loss of human values patients encounter once they undergo surgery. Also, individuals that depend on cosmetic surgery detract from patients that are in urgent need of these procedures. The replacementRead MoreThe, Beauty, And Beauty1573 Words   |  7 Pagesindividual looks like. 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